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Islamic Association's community event soothes a weary spirit

John Rolfe, Taking It Personally
Published 10:00 a.m. ET March 16, 2018

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The third annual “All for one and one for all-united we stand, divided we fall” ceremony held at the Fishkill Recreation Center on Sunday featured community leaders from all different faiths and backgrounds speaking about unity. Video by Jack Howland/Poughkeepsie Journal
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With the world steeped in hostile division, there was blessed shelter from the acrimony storm at the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association’s third annual “All for One, One for All” event. Though its primary goal is to refute the terrorism-tainted public image of Muslims by promoting Islam’s intrinsic message of peace, tolerance and inclusiveness, last Sunday’s gathering at the Fishkill Recreation Center also addressed wider community concerns in a comforting way.

Given our charming national climate of hyper-partisan sniping, it soothed my weary spirit to see a Republican (Dutchess County Executive and New York gubernatorial aspirant Marc Molinaro) and a Democrat (U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of Cold Spring) deliver inspiring remarks to the audience without hurling cheap insults at each other or dueling with pistols at 50 paces. Watching clerics of different faiths, assorted professionals, government officials, educators, and students discussing hot-button topics such as school shootings and immigration made me marvel at how people of widely differing and sometimes antagonistic backgrounds and views can cordially interact just as easily as they can viciously turn on each other.

Mankind’s darkest reactions were on display in a video about the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan that triggered the largest mass migration in history and a paroxysm of gruesome, neighbor-on-neighbor sectarian violence that took more than a million lives. The resulting enmity between the two nations still smolders today. There’s never been an end to that kind of horrid scenario the world over. There are now an estimated 65 million people who have been displaced by strife and deprivation, the most since World War II.

The bright side of humanity was captured in a video about local students and residents helping Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and other refugees in the Albany/Schenectady area. The footage of simple acts of kindness was heartening, given that “refugee” and “immigrant” are dirty words in many countries these days, not only America. Scenes of the refugees humbly receiving common household supplies drove home how often ignored is the fact that they are human beings fleeing conditions we can barely imagine from the distance of our comfortable existence. Many risk their lives to go from one hellish situation into the vortex of the most volatile passions — politics, religion, economics, nationalism, racism, xenophobia — where their future is hardly assured.

The immigration issue is as complex and fraught as firearms control. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed, problems have only festered amid a political dogfight. I’ve heard illegal immigration likened to entering a home and taking up residence, and in a way, that’s true. And some asylum seekers game the system, as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions asserted. But every system is gamed by someone and, as with terrorism and gun violence, the majority pays the price for the actions of a few. Sorting out worthy immigrants and refugee and putting them all on a path to legal citizenship is difficult and time consuming and our system is overwhelmed.

Now our solution is to limit legal immigration, spend billions on a dubious border wall and deport people who have been here for years, sending them to countries they no longer know or have never even seen, tearing families apart in the process. It’s basically tossing them back to the wolves and letting them figure it out. Just hope you’ll never need to throw yourself upon the mercy of others the way they have.

The poor have always been blamed for their misfortune and status. The humanity and helplessness of victims are abstractions. Immigrants and refugees are easily branded and dismissed as criminals, threats to economies and national culture and identity. Each wave, legal or not, is as unwelcome as the last, but it’s to America’s credit that so many have been accepted. As victims of awful circumstances and a broken system, the least they deserve is humane treatment. It all looked so simple and easy during that one peaceful afternoon amid a diverse community in Fishkill.

Columnist John Rolfe lives in Red Hook. Write to him at PersonallyPojo@gmail.com